


It's 2023 and he has one more job to do

by airybmore



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Depressed Steve Rogers, F/M, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 16:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20473802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airybmore/pseuds/airybmore
Summary: It's 1946 and its going to be beautiful.It’s 1947 and he wants so hard for it to be beautiful.It's 1948 and he meets Agent Sousa for the first time.A brief look at what Steve actually got up to between going back for that dance and showing up again on the bench.  Based on the Russo’s version of things where he goes to an alternate timeline.





	It's 2023 and he has one more job to do

It’s 1946 and its going to be beautiful. He goes straight to her. They dance. She cries. It’s been so so long. They kiss for the second time. Make love for the first. It’s what was always supposed to be. He is finally where he belongs and everything is going to be ok. He can rest now. He can be happy. She will be happy. His friends are safe. Everything is going to be ok now. This is where he is always supposed to have been.

It’s 1947 and he wants so hard for it to be beautiful. He’s trying to ‘get a life’ he really is and there are some good times sure but it’s not what he imagined. They just don’t fit quite like he thought they would and he doesn’t know if it’s because it never would have worked any better for them outside of the war and friendly flirting or if he’s just seen too much, lost too much, to settle straight into the 1940s picket fence fantasy. Not that that is exactly what they have going on right now. He thought he would come back, marry her and have a baby as soon as possible, and that would be that. But the wedding keeps getting moved back for one reason or another and Peggy is in no rush to settle down with kids just yet anyway. They nearly break up a couple of times. But how do you admit something you created a whole universe for just isn’t working out so great? So they keep trying. They’re both stubborn. They’ll make it work.

It’s 1948 and he meets Agent Sousa for the first time - the man that would have taken his place. That did take his place in his original timeline. He’s started working for the SSR again – at Peggy’s suggestion, she thinks it will help him move on. It’s there that he watches them together. He’s sure there’s nothing actually going on but (and maybe it’s just knowing what he knows), there’s clearly something there. He’s jealous, of course he is, but, not as much as he thinks he should be. He watches her work too and with her friends, going about her life like she had in his reality – just without him. She seems happier in this environment. More like who she’s meant to be. He has no idea who he’s meant to be anymore.

It’s 1949 and it’s been over for a while now. They still work together, well he works for her now, and they are still friends so much as exes can be (actually a little less than that after he finally tells her about her husband and kids in his timeline). He thinks she’s going to shoot him again when he does it but she punches him instead (there’s still some love there after all). He thinks he deserved it but her life is on the way to working out as it should have at least – just without the guilt and grief of his death over her head. Plus there is no more ‘what if’ scenario about her and him anymore. They tried - it didn’t work out. No real harm done.  
Except for the fact that he’s stuck here now.  
He bet everything on this and he doesn’t know how to get back to the right timeline even if he could get more particles.  
So there is that.

It’s 1950 and he finally has a lead. It’s something he’d planned to do for a while but now that SHIELD is up and running that means Operation Paperclip is too. He argued with all three of them about bringing Zola and the others in to start with but finally realises it may be the quickest way to find him so he gives in. At least that’s what he tells himself. The reality he knows is that he couldn’t win anyway because it wasn’t his call. It was theirs and they made the wrong one. Again. Even when he told them what would/did happened because they think they can make it work this time. Now that they know what to look for. The information is just too valuable to let go completely after all. He shouldn’t be as surprized as he is. They knew who he was and what he’d already done the first time around too – this is just an extension of that. They need what the need from him and that’s it. He files it away on the mental list he’s been keeping as another reason things never could have worked out between the two of them even without Sousa or his own traumatic foray into the ice in their way. There is just no reality where Steve Rogers lives happily ever after with a woman who voluntarily recruits Nazis – no matter how good her intentions. He really should have discussed this with her back in 2014. It could have saved them all a lot of trouble. He’ll stay on with SHIELD though and work on keeping Hydra’s tentacles out. But first he needs to find Bucky before they can do him any more harm than they will already have. He contacts the Howling Commandoes for help. He’s caught up with them as best he could already but they are all spread out across the world these days so this is his first time seeing some of them in person. They all shows up. Of course they do. ‘Anything for Sarge’ they say. Yeah anything for Bucky. 

It’s 1951 and this time he knows that its love. Not infatuation, or a crush on a friend, or admiration mixed with attraction, but heart stopping, breath taking, love of everything that he is. It took two timelines, multiple separations, and more years than it should have for him to finally realise (admit?) something he has felt his whole life. But maybe that’s the problem. Bucky was always there. Always his love so there was never that moment where everything changed. They just needed some actual time together to realise it without the depression, sickness, the war, brainwashing, the Winter Soldier, the ice, the snap, everything else, getting in their way. Plus maybe he’s always just been kinda bad at this whole understanding his emotions thing. But it doesn’t matter now because he loves him and he loves him back and even if they are stuck in this shitty time period where things like this can’t be public, they are together. For real this time. Finally. And life is good. As good as it can be at least. They both still have issues, major, MAJOR issues that won’t go away anytime soon but they are together and that is what matters. Bucky knows this Steve is from the future and about the ice and the stones and time travelling to save the world but he hasn’t told him everything about himself in the future just yet, or the split timeline, or why he came back to the 40s… He knows he will have to soon, he just wants some time for them to live and recover before he lays it all out like that. He just wants time.

It’s 1953 and he is alone. Bucky knows what he did. That he chose to leave everything they could have had and everyone that needed him to hunt her down in time when she wasn’t ever his to take. That he created their whole reality because the one he’d had with Bucky wasn’t good enough for him to stay when given another option (but he was wrong he was wrong he knows that now). He stayed for a while but it just got too much to take on top of everything else that had happened to him. ‘It’s not that I don’t still love you or I can’t forgive you’ he’d told him as he left, ‘it’s that I can’t trust you anymore. And I can’t live like that’.  
It’s 1954 and he attends her wedding. It wasn’t supposed to be this way he thinks to himself. Or actually it was and that’s the problem. It’s just a little later than it was in his timeline. He remembers talking to her back when he first woke up from the ice, and meeting her family at her funeral with Sharon and wonders what the hell he was thinking leaving everything for a ‘what if’ with a woman who had already lived her life. He knows now he could have had one of those too if he’d stayed where he was supposed to stay. He watches them dance and he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks, but it has no effect so nothing changes. Nothing ever really changes. 

It’s 1955 and the Howling Commandos are having a reunion. He doesn’t go. They were Bucky’s team first and he doesn’t want to make it awkward for him. It’s not like he’s supposed to be there anyway. Monty tries to call. Jones drops by his apartment when he’s in the area one day. They try but he’s made his decision. They’re good men. They’ll understand. 

It’s 1956 and he wants to fly a plane into the ocean. He wonders about the other Steve under the ice right now. Maybe he should tell someone about him. People have asked - the few who know the actual story. He thinks he’s probably happier down there though. He was. There’s nothing here for either of them. He thinks maybe Sam was right and he should have talked to someone while he could. 

It’s 1961 and he’s been throwing himself into his work for years now. He knows he was supposed to rest. That’s part of why he came here. But he can’t. Not when he’s the only one that knows what’s coming. So he keeps going. He can do this all day. He made this world he can’t just let it be.

It’s 1969 and they put a man on the moon. He remembers when he went to space. They were painful times for all of them, they had lost so much but they were together still, the original Avengers plus a couple more and that was something. And space was amazing. He wishes he spent more time looking up when he was there and less time staring at an old photo of his now ex. 

It’s 1970 and he suddenly realises that fact while attending a meeting in Peggy’s office. He decides to stay home on the day that he and Tony came back– just in case.

It’s 1975 and he meets five year old Tony for the first time. Well ‘meets’ is an exaggeration, he’s at some fancy do at Howard’s with some others from work and he sees him over playing with Peggy and Daniel’s kids. They are older than him but they keep the young Stark entertained. He wants Howard to be a better father in this timeline (maybe a lot of things will work out better this time if he is) but he doesn’t really know how to do that. He never had a dad around and has no idea how to interact with kids himself. He never really wanted them that much if he’s honest with himself. He just thought that’s what he was supposed to do when settling down. But he does miss being part of a family. He misses his Ma and Bucky and the Barnes’ and his days on the run with Natasha, Sam and Wanda. He decides later to talk to Jarvis about Tony and the effect Howard had on him in his timeline. With his closeness to Peggy he’s sure he knows already that he’s from the future and Tony clearly loved him in his timeline anyway so he thinks he’s the right man for the job. He hopes it is enough.

It’s 1984 and he lights a candle on the day of her birth. He misses her. She was his first friend in the future and his only bright spot in those years after the snap. She’s also the only one he never abandoned but that’s because she was dead at the bottom of a cliff by the time he was able to go so there’s not a lot of comfort in that. He knows he should have had more of a reaction to seeing the Red Skull again but her body was still at Vormir when he returned that stone and that was all he could process. He tried to get her back he really did but couldn’t. That still hurts. He wonders what she’d think of his decision to come back here. All of his old friends are alive in this world now, except for Wanda. He’ll mark her birth when the time comes too. He wonders if he’ll ever see any of them again. 

It’s 1985 and he sees him again. He is still beautiful and brave and kind and most importantly he is happy, or looks to be at least, it’s hard to really know with some people and he’s come to realise that Bucky has (had?) a habit of masking his hurt when he’s around. So he hopes he’s happy. He’s with someone else now. Someone he can trust not to bail for greener pastures when things get too hard. He thinks of the other Bucky and cannot believe that he gave up their chance to be together after everything they had gone through and the miracle that they had ended up in a softer future together. But he was younger and stupid and battle worn and his mistakes were all his own - too wrapped up in the power of changing history and rewriting every loss that he could to realise he was already where he belonged. He cannot bear to think of him out there waiting for him to never return so he thinks instead that at least he got to save this Bucky some of the pain he’d felt the first time around. He misses them both so so much. 

It’s 1986 and he is going to save her. She was never exactly an open book but he thinks he learned enough details about her and the Red Room over those last few years that he has to at least try. It worked with this world’s Bucky it can work with Nat. 

It’s 1991 and technically he has a wife and a pretty little seven year old red-headed daughter. It took nearly everything he had but he took down the Red Room. At least he thinks he did. He knows he’s been wrong about eradicating evil organisations before so he wants to get her out of Russia and into America where he can keep an eye on her just in case. Her father Ivan was already dead by the time he found her but her mother remained. She’s a lot like Natasha but plenty different as well. They become friend. It’s a bit surreal but he’s had experience spending time with his old friends’ younger counterparts and this is basically the same just in reverse. They sleep together once because she’s thankful and he’s lonely but it’s not really that kind of relationship, they just both want to do what they need to do to give Nat the life she deserves. The American people aren’t thrilled with their Captain marrying a Russian but no one stops him. He buys a house big enough for them to have their own space as mother and daughter while still keeping up the charade of the happy new Rogers family. 

It’s 2005 and they really have become a sort of family over time. So much so that they both decide to stay in his life years after they could have left him behind. He has seen little Nat Rogers grow up safe and loved with her mother - gradually turning into the woman he once knew. Or a version of her anyway. He knows they are different people and this has all done absolutely nothing for the original Natasha but it’s all he could do. He is still lonely a lot of the time and he still gets so sad sometimes he can barely stand it but he has people in his life that he loves once again and he is doing what good in the world that he can and these are not small things. 

It’s 2011 and he lives the same year twice for the first time. 

It’s 2012 and he’s ready and waiting for the Asgardians to arrive.

It’s 2018 and the snap never happens in this world. He’s been working for many years to deal with the stones on Earth and he gave this Thor all the information he could to take care of Thanos and the other stones. It’s worked so far but he still worries. He can’t go through that again.

It’s 2023 and he lives the same year twice for the last time.

It’s 2086 and he is old and so very tired but he knows now he’ll never really stop. He still works with SHIELD. Not as a fighter but in other ways because that’s what he does. It’s how he comes across the tech once again. It works a bit different than in his world (his first world that is) but it’s the same concept just more precise. It will get him where he needs to go. He says his farewells to everyone he can (just in case, he doesn’t want to just disappear again) and then he is gone.

It’s 2023 and he is back where he started. He can’t face him just yet, Bucky, not knowing what he knows about what they could/should have been. He still misses him. Still loves him completely. His grief over their missed future together has changed over time but it’s never really gone away and the reality that for him Steve just disappeared seconds ago, is too much and too little all at once. He knows the other Bucky got by without him so he’s confident this one will too (even with the added pressures) but he wishes he didn’t have to. 

He’s relieved when it’s Sam who approaches him first, on his left one more time. It’s so good to see his old friend after all this time. He tells him it was beautiful because parts of it really were. He doesn’t tell him anything else because parts of it really weren’t and he doesn’t want to leave him with any more burdens that the one he’s about to give. 

He’s come back mostly just to offer some closure (so much as he can at least). The world has been hit hard, a lot of people are dead, and he doesn’t want them to worry about him and the fate of the timelines on top of all that. Or to try to find him when he knows they never did. But he also wants to hand over the shield because he thinks maybe this world still needs it (even if he didn’t think so the first time he was here) and ok maybe he wants a part of him to stay in this reality too. He knows Sam will make a great Cap – he is both a soldier and a good man (better than him in many ways he knows) and, from what he can tell, he thinks the timing is right for Sam now too - to take up that mantel. 

He sees Sam take the shield as his own and he remembers perfectly what it was like to take up the shield for the first time. He’s 245 years old and he remembers everything that’s happened to him and everyone that’s mattered with near perfect clarity. He’s lost so many, some in battle, some to time, some to his own stupid decisions. He hopes his old friends can be there for each other when he’s not. Hopes Bucky finds a place and some peace in this world. He needs him to know what he meant to him and that he’s sorry. 

A large part of him wants to stay and live out the rest of his days in this world with some of the people he’s missed so much and to make sure they are ok. But he knows he can’t. He’s already made the mistake of holding on too tight to a life that isn’t his anymore and he’s trying not to live in the past so much these days (it’s hard and he mostly fails but he’s trying). So he’ll stay a few days. Tie up a few loose ends and say some real goodbyes. And then he’s going back.


End file.
